


Inlustris

by grimsgay



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Not with Noct though..., Pining, Prompto tries to get over Noct and fails, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 18:05:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18997774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimsgay/pseuds/grimsgay
Summary: Prompto gets his first kiss.





	Inlustris

**Author's Note:**

> Credit for the concept of this fic goes to violetstorm!
> 
> EDIT: Tags have been adjusted after getting further opinions on the content- However, as a reminder, authors sometimes mis-tag or forget tags altogether, and any fic rated m or e tagged as “author chose not to use archive warnings” could potentially contain darker content! It’s fine to suggest additional tags, but don’t be a dick about it! 💖

( i. )

 

He’s sixteen when he almost gives away his first kiss. _Almost._ Maybe, if he tries, he can fabricate the memory, claim that yes, he, Prompto Argentum, kissed his first girl at sixteen. Except, it’s not that easy when it wasn’t a girl, and it wasn’t a stranger, and actually, he knows the boy well, and so does all of Lucis. It’s not that easy when he knows they really didn’t kiss, because Noctis - as much as he seemed to want to - is a prince, and Prompto is some nobody.

There are no excuses should Noctis bring it up- He’s not the first guy Prompto’s thought about kissing, probably won't be last, but they’re so _different._ Prompto is free to kiss guys, girls, whoever, but Noctis is a prince. A prince kissing a boy, nevermind someone as ordinary and unremarkable as him- It’s _unheard of._ It could cause a scandal at best.

But nobody knows. They were camping, far removed from the citadel, bathed in starlight. Noctis had looked at him with curiosity, but more importantly, _adoration._ Prompto had never believed in love, not before then, but in that second, eternity stopped, and Noctis made him want to. It was a memory shared between two innocent friends and it remained their secret.

Noctis never speaks of it again; really, there’s no reason to. Not when they didn't _actually_ kiss. Nevermind that Noctis looked like it was his first time seeing light. Nevermind that Prompto had felt he would explode, his posture bursting at the seams with unfiltered joy. Nevermind the subtle whispers of affection they shared in passing, reminders to Prompto of what could be.

Nevermind that now, gazing at Noctis knocks all oxygen from his lungs.

It’s not to be.

Noctis does not speak of it and neither does he. As much as he desires more (and oh, what a selfish boy he is), he’s not willing to live in mindless fantasies. The interest is clearly one-sided, and the moment he’s come to cherish so much, a trick of deluded memory.

He’s not excited, but he makes his peace.

 

*****

( ii. )

 

They’re on the roof when Noctis speaks of stars again. Or, not really _stars -_ rather what happened under them. Just like now, beneath the cosmos, their limbs subconsciously twining together. Prompto’s heart quakes, knocking about his ribcage, and causing him to stiffen. Noctis, _his prince_ , doesn’t seem to notice.

“Do you ever think about that night?” Noctis asks.

“That night…?”

“Yeah- When we… Almost kissed.” The hesitancy in his voice is chilling, and Prompto struggles to ignore it as every cell in his body freezes.

“...I- Sometimes.”

Noctis hums. “I wonder what it might’ve been like. And I’ll probably be expected to… To kiss. When I’m married. Have you ever kissed anyone?”

“No. I haven’t.”

Prompto hesitates on his words, as always. He’s never been strong, not like Noctis. He’s just the coward, the _commoner,_ nothing special _._ In that moment, though, fire blooms in his veins. Slowly, it fights off the cold. He takes a chance there, risking _everything_ , and it takes every bit of strength he doesn’t have. What he says, is this:

“Noct… I love you.”

“I love you too, bro, but what does that have to do with my marriage?”

“No I-” His lips are much to dry, his head spinning, _reeling_ too fast- “I love you. And _I_ want to… To kiss _you_. That kind of love. I… Do you feel that? At all?”

Noctis stays quiet, and for an eternal moment, Prompto craves rejection. It doesn’t come. “I mean… I don’t know how I feel. But- Maybe we could try it sometime?”

This may be the best and only chance he’ll get, and logically he _knows_ he should stop.  He should let his idiotic fantasies bleed out and die before his heart is slit and he is ruined for anyone else. He should break it off before it starts, whatever the fuck it even is- before both of them drown in the carnage of their doomed infatuation. He can’t.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Months later, Noctis gets pulled into the crystal, and Prompto remains stuck outside.

Noctis still hasn’t answered.

They still haven’t kissed.

 

*****

( iii. )

 

Prompto doesn’t date and he doesn’t kiss.

At least, this is what he tells himself the first time it happens, when he lets himself get drugged at a sleazy gathering a little too far from home. It’s what he tells himself while dancing, when he’s dizzy and breathless. This isn’t a nightclub - it’s much too unsavory for that - but if he closes his eyes, he can imagine he’s somewhere else. He repeats to himself, _‘I want this,’_ like a mantra, when he feels grinding against him, the sea of bodies around them obscuring any vision of the stranger from his view. But oh, he knows he isn’t alone.

He tells himself, when hands wander closer, when fingertips ghost his thighs and he shudders and whines, that this is who he is. This is what he wants. He keeps dancing, if this debauchery can even be considered that. The other moves against him, flesh rough and calloused and oh so overbearing. His heart ignites, he closes his eyes, and briefly, he fantasizes there’s someone else behind him. Someone familiar.

_Someone royal._

_It’s easy enough to think that these are Noctis’ hands on him when those are the only hands he’s ever known._

He tells himself he wants this, still, when fingers brush the front of his shorts and proceed lower. He does, really. That’s why he came here and why he’s dressed in shorts that barely cover his underwear. This is what he wants.

He lets those hands explore until they recede- and then he feels a solid heat against his back and hears that sultry whisper of, “let's get out of here.”

He still wants this when he’s dragged, quite forcefully, out back to an alley. He closes his eyes and ignores all the warning signs: that they’re not safe, that he wants to _cry_ , that his heart beats like he’s to be ravaged by demons- and perhaps maybe he is. He was not led away by a man, but by a demon, intent on tearing out his viscera and devouring his soul.

He ignores the disgust.

He’s lost his chance to say no, but it’s okay because _he wants this_. That’s what he’s told himself, that’s what he’ll keep saying a thousand times. Even when hands scorch every inch of him, burning flesh from his bones like acid, even when it’s much too brutal, and Prompto is called things he’s only ever heard in cheap pornos- he wants this.

It’s not Noctis, but he’d never deserved Noctis anyway. This, he deserves. Even when his heart stops, when he cries through the agony and the revulsion, and when he flinches as the man pulls out- Even when after, he’s left bruised, abandoned, and covered in both bodily fluids and blood (whose blood? He doesn’t know-). Even when he adds his dinner to the puddle. Even later, when he scratches away the evidence and drags himself back to Gladiolus and Ignis-

He tells himself he’d wanted it.

_(Gladiolus is asleep, out cold to the world, and Ignis doesn’t see the bruises- can’t. For once Prompto is thankful his friend is blind. It’s a thought that leaves a rancid taste in his mouth, just like the stranger’s hands.)_

Prompto doesn’t date and he definitely doesn’t kiss. It’s what he wants, and it’s what he’s going to get. At least this apathy is better than constant uncertainty and wondering whether or not Noctis will ever love him back.

 

*****

( iv. )

 

Prompto likes to think he makes good decisions. Really, he does. He’s had to; his parents were absent from his later childhood. He takes care of himself, of his friends, of strangers, and he tries his best to be _responsible-_

So maybe he never stopped his hookups, and that’s not a great decision. Not when they’re a tool to forget something not easily forgotten. Not when he wakes from every encounter and scrubs himself raw trying to get clean- _Not when he still hasn’t had his first kiss_. Not when Noctis isn’t going to return for years yet-

-But suddenly(or maybe not - it’s been ten years after all), he’s sitting with Noctis again. There are others, of course. This isn’t the first time they’ve sat around firelight together. The atmosphere is different, though, and Prompto wonders why he expected things to remain the same after _so much_ has changed between them.  Now, they walk face first towards the inevitable.

_This is his last chance._

Ignis is the first to retire, followed by Gladiolus, and Prompto is grateful that he has a moment alone with Noctis. It’s small, but it’s something. Noctis is still his best friend, even after ten years of distance. Maybe it’s a fool's decision- but then, Prompto was never the smartest in their group. He’s always tried to make good decisions, but when it comes to Noctis, good decisions and smart ones weren’t necessarily the same.

The prince( _king now, he corrects, because this is not the same Noctis he almost kissed under the stars all those years ago)_ does not smile, not as he’d hoped for, but he does ask to talk. Prompto wistfully dreams he’ll find closure. Maybe Noctis will provide the answer he’d been too overwhelmed to give, ten, eleven, even fourteen years prior. It’s a hopeless whimsy, but he’s a fool in love, and clinging to this is what drives him towards daybreak.

“Prompto…” It begins, eyes lacking contact. It’s difficult to read expressions clearly by firelight, but Prompto’s moon and stars left him years ago; he’s long grown accustomed to void. “I’m sorry- I-“

Something in Prompto sinks.

“I can’t- I’m supposed to die tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“You still love me.”

Prompto flinches. It’s incredibly obvious, then. He can mask himself from Ignis and Gladiolus, but Noctis could always break his facade with one glance. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, voice unsteady.

But this isn’t the response Noctis wants to hear, and his frown deepens, gaze absorbed into the flames. “...I think I wouldn’t mind… If my last kiss is shared with you.”

Prompto's breath shatters. he closes the distance, pulling Noctis’ face close enough to feel gasps ghost his lips. They stare intently, both looking for signs to continue - or in Prompto’s case to _stop._ There is no panic, no hesitancy, no dismissal. In the dim glow of flames, when vision is near nonexistent, Prompto sees honesty in Noctis’ features. There is only want, and it takes hours they don’t have for Prompto to process: Noctis wants him. Noctis wants to kiss him.

Now there is nothing else in the world. Nothing matters, nothing exists, and certainly, nothing could part them. They are locked together, like lovers, and Prompto has never considered Noctis could be his lover for real, but with their bodies flush, their eyes heavy, and their lips _just so magically close-_

“Noct…” he whispers, tongue heavy.

“I want this,” is the response he receives, and Prompto hesitantly closes his eyes, the intent to obey heavy in his bones. He wants it just as bad, if not more-

“-Come to bed already, you two- We don’t know how many demons we’ll face tomorrow.”

Yeah. That’s right.

Their fairytale moment is interrupted as cold, _dark_ reality slaps them backhanded across the face, and Prompto pulls away. In a few hours, they’ll return to Insomnia, where it all began. In a few more hours, Noctis will be dead. It was foolish of Prompto to think happiness could come of this.

Noctis calls to him as he pulls away to join the others in the tent, but he bites his teeth, swallows his pride, and pretends that he isn’t in love with a dead man walking.

 

*****

( v. )

 

Noctis and Prompto were never meant to be. Noctis’ duty is to the crown, to his people, to the prophecy, and to the fate of the world. It was written in his blood and across millennia in the stars. No matter how badly Prompto wanted(and oh, he still _wants_ -), he remains empty. He is helpless as unrequited desires bear no fruit.

The biggest cruelty, perhaps, is that it’s not unrequited- not _really._ Noctis had wanted him, _once_ , if only a little. It was brief, fleeting- they never properly spoke of it. Prompto wonders- would anything have changed if they had? It’s unlikely. Noctis’ story is not a fairytale, it has no happy ending, and Prompto is depressingly absent from the margins.

But this… _This_ he can do.

Prompto moves slowly towards Ignis and Gladiolus, and to the corpse cradled between them. He helps to lower the body down - it’s not what Noctis deserves, not by any stretch. He’s sacrificed so much, given _everything,_ but all he’ll ever get is the cold ground.

In the new sunlight, he looks beautiful, his eyes closed and resting with an ethereality unbefitting of the dead. There is something wet on Prompto's cheek, but he pays it no mind. He presses shaky hands to Noctis’s own and leans close. There is no heartbeat, no sound of life or vibrancy, no warmth to his skin- Prompto cannot see his eyes now, but knows they no longer hold galaxies in their expanse. He already knew when the light returned that Noctis has passed. Seeing him, however-

It’s almost too much.

Noctis wouldn't have wanted him broken, crying for something that never was. Maybe Prompto is weak, has cried a thousand times too many over the mundane, and not a single tear where it actually counts. Maybe he’s even helpless, doomed from the start to burn out for a dying star. Maybe he can never truly recover from this, whatever _this_ might be, but he can pretend. At the very least, Prompto thinks, he can do this.

He can gather whatever strength he has left, put on his mask, and walk tall and proud the way Noctis would want.

So, with gentle lips and a determined expression, he meets Noctis’ own, and then he lays his king to rest.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up if you wanna talk FFXV angst~!
> 
> Fun fact: I wrote this yesterday and edited today... This is the fastest I've ever finished a fic.


End file.
